Public Documents of North Carolina

Years covered by the guide: 1831-1919

The Public Documents of North Carolina series is a great starting point to learn about the workings of North Carolina's government and the important issues facing it at that time. The series was published from 1831-1919. Each volume compiles executive and legislative documents (annual and biennial reports, budget documents, addresses of governors to the General Assembly, reports of state institutions, and special committees' reports) produced for the year's session of the General Assembly.

For example, the 1840 edition contains Governor Dudley's message to the General Assembly and includes reports of the Comptroller's Department, the Public Treasurer, the Commissioners for Rebuilding the Capitol, and the President and Directors of the Literary Fund of North Carolina Showing the Fiscal Operations of the Board and the Progress made in Draining the Swamp Lands, as well as other reports. The Public Documents series is the only place to find the reports of many state agencies.

Genealogists may find this set of value because many of the reports have lists of names. For example, the Auditor's report will have a list of people working for state government or receiving contracts from the state, the names of sheriffs, and the names of people paid to transport patients to the insane asylum, including the names of some of those transported. Other types of information of interest to genealogists are lists of soldiers and Governor's pardons and commutations.

The print version of this title is made up of volumes that can be more than 5 inches thick and over a thousand pages. Some volumes have foldouts (an oversize page that is folded in to a book or magazine) that contain valuable information (the state budget, other financial information), but the foldouts are too fragile to open. The foldouts have been digitized and inserted into the publication in the same place they appear in the original publications. While many volumes contain a list of the documents within, a lack of indices has been a barrier to easily finding specific information within this set.

The digital Public Documents are indexed and word searchable, so that researchers can more easily find the rich but hidden information. The digital versions can be viewed, downloaded and/or printed. The digitization of the Public Documents was supported by the Ensuring Democracy through Digital Access grant, which funds the creation of a digital collection of core North Carolina documents.

Featured Reports within the Set

Alternate names:Documents printed by order of the general assembly of North Carolina at its session;Executive and legislative documents laid before the General Assembly of North-Carolina;North Carolina executive and legislative documents;Executive and legislative documents of the State of North Carolina;Legislative documents: session

PROJECT FUNDING

This project was partially supported with federal LSTA funds made possible through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, administered by the State Library of North Carolina, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources.